Liquid crystal, which has been widely applied in display devices, has a function whereby a light transmitting property can be controlled by electric signals. Making use of this function, liquid crystal has been applied in various types of shutters, including the shutters in glasses with controllable light-transmitting and light-blocking effect.
The practical application of stereoscopic systems is advancing in fields such as leisure, education, broadcasting, and medicine. In stereoscopic systems, liquid crystal is used in fast-response shutters which show left-eye and right-eye images corresponding to the parallax between the left and right eyes on a time-divided basis. For instance, JP-A 08-327961 (1996) (Kokai) describes a stereoscopic image display device that uses shutter glasses with liquid-crystal cells having a right-eye region and a left-eye region.
When stereoscopic images of a movie or the like are viewed using a stereoscopic image display system that uses liquid crystal shutter glasses, the viewer can, in some cases, experience fatigue and discomfort. This effect is understood to prevent comfortable enjoyment of stereoscopic images.